Monday, March 9, 2015

Today in History for March 9, 2015

March 9, 1454 - Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence,
Italy. Matthias Ringmann, a German mapmaker, named the American continent in
his honor.

March 9, 1772 – Ferdinand Claiborne was born in Sussex
County, Va.

March 9, 1781 - Spanish General Bernardo de Galvez began the
siege of Pensacola, Florida.

March 9, 1788 - Connecticut became the fifth state to join
the United States.

March 9, 1814 – Edmund P. Gaines, who arrested Aaron Burr
near Fort Stoddert in 1807, was promoted to brigadier general during the War of
1812 and commanded the post at Fort Erie after the U.S. capture.

March 9, 1818 – Following the creation of the Alabama
Territory in 1817, Col. John Crowell, then a Creek Indian agent, was chosen
(without opposition) to represent the territory in Congress. His term would
expire on March 3, 1819.

March 9, 1832 - Abraham Lincoln announced that he would run
for a political office for the first time. He was unsuccessful in his run for a
seat in the Illinois state legislature.

March 9, 1840 – Confederate soldier Arthur B. Hale, who
would go on to serve in Co. F of the 36th Alabama Infantry, was born.

March 9, 1859 - The National Association of Baseball Players
adopted the rule that limited the size of bats to no more than 2-1/2 inches in
diameter.

March 9, 1862 – During the five-hour Battle of Hampton
Roads, Va., the USS Monitor dueled to a standstill with the C.S.S. Virginia
(originally the C.S.S. Merrimack) in one of the most famous moments in naval
history - the first time two ironclads faced each other in a naval engagement.
During the battle, the two ships circled one another, jockeying for position as
they fired their guns. The cannon balls simply deflected off the iron ships. In
the early afternoon, the Virginia pulled back to Norfolk. Neither ship was
seriously damaged, but the Monitor effectively ended the short reign of terror
that the Confederate ironclad had brought to the Union navy.

March 9, 1864 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln appointed
General Ulysses S. Grant to command all of the armies of the United States. General
William T. Sherman succeeded Grant as the commander in the western theater.

March 9, 1871 – After the state legislature was petitioned
to incorporate the City of Greenville, the legislature granted a charter on
this day, which was accepted by a vote of the people on May 20, 1871. John B.
Lewis was elected the first Mayor of the City of Greenville.

March 9, 1913 – Virginia Woolf delivered the manuscript for
her first novel, “The Voyage Out,” to the Duckworth Publishing House.

March 9, 1918 – One of the 20th Century’s best-selling
novelists, Mickey Spillane, was born in New York City.

March 9, 1934 - Yuri Gagarin was born in Klushino, Russian
SFSR, Soviet Union. Gagarin would go on to become the first human to both enter
space and orbit the Earth. Seven years following his historic achievements,
Gagarin died in a helicopter crash, the cause of which remains a mystery to
this day.

March 9, 1943 – An 81-foot-long, two-man Japanese “suicide”
submarine that was captured at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 was put on display
from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. in front of Greenville City Hall on Commerce Street in
Greenville, Ala. During a U.S. Treasury Department tour of the state, the sub
was also show in Mobile (March 8), Montgomery (March 10, Sylacauga, Birmingham
and Anniston. On its way from Mobile to Greenville, the sub passed through
Evergreen, McKenzie and Georgiana.

March 9, 1960 – Major League Baseball catcher Benito
Santiago was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He would go on to play for the San
Diego Padres, the Florida Marlins, the Cincinnati Reds, the Philadelphia
Phillies, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Chicago Cubs, the San Francisco Giants,
the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

March 9, 1964 - In the Alabama case New York Times v. Sullivan, the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down a landmark free speech decision. A Montgomery city
commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, had sued the Times
for running a factually inaccurate ad that criticized the city's handling of
civil rights demonstrators. Citing the First Amendment the court ruled against Sullivan,
thereby strengthening the right to freely criticize government.

March 9, 1972 – Bruce Dale Jones of Evergreen, 20, was
killed in action at Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Gia Dinh, South Vietnam, where he
was serving as a sergeant in the Air Force’s 377th Security Police Squadron.

March 9, 1973 – Major League Baseball third baseman Aaron
Boone was born in La Mesa, Calif. He would go on to play for the Cincinnati
Reds, the New York Yankees, the Cleveland Indians, the Florida Marlins, the Washington
Nationals and the Houston Astros.

March 9, 1978 – The Evergreen Courant reported that former
Evergreen High School basketball star David Thomas, a 6-foot-5 senior at
Jacksonville State, “closed out a brilliant basketball career” by scoring 32
points to lead his team to a win over arch-rival North Alabama at Pete Matthews
Coliseum. He made 13-of-15 shots from the floor, including two slam dunks, and
made six-of-nine free throws. He also had nine rebounds and blocked two shots.

March 9, 1985 - "Gone With The Wind" went on sale
in video stores across the U.S. for the first time.

March 9, 2001 - A movie version of Alabama author Linda
Howard's “Loving Evangeline”
was released.

March 9, 2004 – The Alabama Senate voted, two to one (14-6),
to approve House Joint Resolution No. 100, which proposed designating Conecuh
Ridge Alabama Fine Whiskey as the Alabama State Spirit.